it's starting to look like the folks who ran the election in King County either (1) really did emulate old man Daley's Cook County elections or (2) are among the most incompetent morons in government.

Wow, the perfect application to test Coyote's Law in real time. Coyote's law states:

When the same set of facts can be explained equally well by

A massive conspiracy coordinated without a single leak between hundreds or even thousands of people -OR -

Sustained stupidity, confusion and/or incompetence

Assume stupidity.

Applying this to King County, I will assume stupidity. I must say that having lived in King County, this is not the first time Meyer's Law has come up. The city has made so many colossal blunders, including having a major bridge sunk in 1990 when someone accidental left the stopcocks open (that bridge, ironically, had been named after the State Highway director on whose watch was built the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which tore itself apart famously). There have for years been rumors that the ridiculous constriction created in downtown Seattle on Interstate 5 by the building of the convention center (and which is almost impossible to fix) was made on purpose by anti-growth planners.